Why Do I Fight?
by Shade Strife
Summary: Short featuring Vincent Valentine. Everyone has reasons for their actions. Sometimes though, it takes a bit of exploration to find them... I don't own Vincent, FFVII, or any of the characters mentioned in this fic.


The last rays of the setting sun reflected on the window in the back parlor of the Shinra mansion. Little motes of dust swirled about the room, dancing in the fading golden rays. The air of the room was musty; it had the smell of an old closet that no one ever used. For the most part it was covered by shadows. The only source of light came from the window. Even now the pool of gold light was shrinking.  
  
"Is that how it is with life?" Vincent watched as the last of the light disappeared behind Mount Nibel. "Can light fill a space with life and hope one minute, and be sucked away in the next?"  
  
He stood beside the window a moment longer, staring out at the sky. The stars would be out soon, but he doubted he would see them. Filling the sky, night and day, was Meteor. The summons of Sephiroth. That ball of fire was the root of all the world's current problems. It sucked the light from all the other stars in the sky; they faded in the presence of such a thing.  
  
That abomination was why he had come back to this accursed place. Cloud had told them to find the reason why they were fighting. It went deeper than saving the planet; Vincent realized that now. But did he really have anything, anyone worth fighting for?  
  
Leaving the parlor Vincent moved silently down the halls of the mansion, not paying attention to where he was going. The truth be told, he didn't know why he was fighting anymore. Hojo was dead: the battle atop the Sister Ray in Midgar had seen to that. He had no scores left to settle. With Hojo gone, his past should have been laid to rest. But something still did not feel right. He couldn't just leave things as they were, not yet anyway.  
  
"So why do I continue?" Vincent looked up from his musings to see where his wandering had led him. "The lab. Figures."  
  
This one room was where his nightmare had started. This was where he had been shot; where Hojo had preformed whatever sick experiments he could on his body. Where he had first become a monster. Where he had first heard the name 'Sephiroth'…  
  
Sephiroth. The son of Lucrecia. For a time he had thought that the man was his son. Only in the confrontation with Hojo had the truth come out. Sephiroth wasn't his son; he was Hojo's.  
  
Vincent picked up a book from where it lay on the floor and glanced at its pages. Jenova Project. He tossed the book back onto the floor and looked around the room. It was a mess. Books where everywhere, some open, others piled in messy stacks against the bookcases. According to Cloud, this was where Sephiroth had gone insane. All the information these books contained, true and false, had been enough to break Sephiroth's mind and create what he was today.  
  
"The start of another nightmare."  
  
At the far side of the room stood two tall glass tanks. They were dark and empty now, but at one time they had been filled with mako and, at most times, specimens. Human specimens. Cloud had spent five years as one of them, a victim to yet another of Hojo's experiments. While nothing like what Vincent had to face, the results had still turned the young man's life into a living hell. He had seen him hardly more than a few weeks ago, a puppet at Sephiroth's command with no will of his own. While he had been able to overcome it, his friends could see that what he had been forced to do still tortured him.  
  
"Another nightmare"  
  
And even after these, there was still one more. The one that perhaps haunted him the most.  
  
Lucrecia's.  
  
What made hers all the worse was the fact that he had had the power to stop it. If only he had been more insistent about not continuing the project. Forget that: if only he had taken care of Hojo before this had all gotten started…  
  
But that had been impossible. Lucrecia had seen how much he had disliked the man from the outset. So, to protect Hojo from him, she married Hojo. With that one move she had saved Hojo's life, and insured the success of the Jenova project. It was obvious that she cared for the other scientist, and that if he were to die, a part of her would too. So he had been forced to let Hojo live.  
  
A choice that he regretted more than anything else he had ever done  
  
A few months later Lucrecia had gone into labor. It nearly killed her; the only thing that sustained her had been the Jenova cells Hojo had loaded into her body. The product of this was a child with mako cat-eyes, and the beginnings of a growth of silver hair. Lucrecia never got to hold him. Hojo chose his name.  
  
Sephiroth.  
  
A short while ago while exploring the area around Mount Nibel, Vincent and the others had discovered a cave hidden behind a waterfall. There they had found her, all but dead. Lucrecia had asked about Sephiroth. She had heard of his death five years ago, but couldn't bring herself to believe it. Somehow she had survived on the belief that somewhere her son was alive. For the past thirty years that was all that had kept her living.  
  
And he had taken it away from her.  
  
With two words, he had taken away everything from her.  
  
"He's dead."  
  
Vincent wasn't sure whether he had freed her from her past or only bound her to it more tightly. He only hoped she was able to move on, despite what that meant.  
  
Vincent left the lab and climbed the spiraling staircase to the upper floor of the mansion. Crossing to a window, he forced it open and swung up onto the roof in one fluid movement. Crouching at the edge of the roof, he looked up at the sky. Meteor hung in space, so close one could see the flames that danced across its surface. But as Vincent stared at the destroyer, something else in the corner of his eye caught his attention.  
  
Stars.  
  
They covered the rest of the sky, pinpricks of silver light in the darkness.  
  
Vincent watched them. They didn't change. Meteor couldn't steal their light as he had thought. On the contrary, the stars seemed to be laughing at it for trying. Meteor couldn't steal their light. No one could.  
  
"Maybe I have a reason to fight after all."  
  
Cloud.  
  
Sephiroth.  
  
Lucrecia.  
  
This place had been the start of their nightmares too.  
  
Vincent looked out over Nibelheim. It was dark and silent; it's residents long asleep. In the windows he could see the reflections of the stars.  
  
For the first time in a very long while, Vincent smiled.  
  
Maybe it was time for the nightmares to stop once and for all. 


End file.
